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Dude and Lamont

“Yep. On this day, 1743 years ago, you fell from your mom during a windstorm, landed in rich humus of oak leaves, dirt, and cow dung.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You were a tiny acorn. No one imagined that out of the hundreds tossed about in the gale, YOU would send down roots, send up shoots, reach your tiny branches to the sky, and voilá, after a couple of centuries your gnarled and lovely branches would shelter many a weary traveler, host many a Druid feast, provide a home for squirrels, insects, birds, your friend Mr. Owl…”

“Good lord. Mr. Owl?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Yeah, but I don’t think I called him ‘mister’. How do you know I was ‘born’ on that day?”

“I was there, remember?”

“You were an acorn.”

“Yeah, but I was paying attention. Anyway, that storm was unforgettable.”

“Apparently.”

“Mom made it through. Amazing, considering her great age.”

“I don’t remember ‘mom’ at all.”

“Well, you fell pretty far away from her nurturing influence.”

“Don’t you have a job to go to or something? A Smilodon suit to don? A long, harrowing drive?”

“I quit. Last week. I told you. It got to be tedious after a while. Those Smilodon urges, well, you know. You can’t just put on a costume week after week and not want to hunt mastodons.”

“I think I could do that, Dude. I mean, it was an income. That was a good thing. You got paid a lot…”

“To sweat for two days a week, snarl and make paw swipes, hanging around while my ‘handler’ let the kiddies ask questions that I wasn’t allowed to answer. It’s amazing to me what these so-called scientists don’t seem to know. You’d think they’d remember a little something.”

***

Lamont and Dude are characters I came up with a few years ago. They have the uncanny ability to remember many of their past incarnations which gives them a unique perspective on life, the universe and everything.

P.S. Decided to test out WP’s new editor. Has some glitches but so far so good. I didn’t challenge it much. You can edit the size of an image without going away from your post, which is nice.

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“Remember those lovely warm afternoons after we chased, shredded and shared an protoceraptops and we just lay there, basking on a rock, digesting?”

“What’s wrong, Lamont?”

“Nothing, just thinking of the goodle days.”

“Yeah, the reptilian life has a lot going for it.”

“Especially when you’re a dinosaur, wouldn’t you say? I wouldn’t like being an alligator lizard.”

“Maybe you have been. Who knows?”

“Yeah, that’s not the kind of existence you’d remember, especially if you got run over by a car or eaten by a cat.”

“Did you ever think how everything stays the same and only the names are changed?”

“I have. I was watching a gray tabby cat play with a dead leaf, and I thought ‘Whoa, if I got down there real close to the ground it would look like a Smilodon vs, I don’t know, something’.”

“Yeah, it’s just a matter of scale. Why don’t we go to the store and get some steaks? It’ll be almost like we killed something.”

“Speaking of scale, science has figured out that we didn’t kill many big dinosaurs but were mostly scavengers, and if we killed anything it was mostly bugs, lizards and stuff like that.”

“Science scmience. It was still fun, wasn’t it?”

***

Lamont and Dude are characters I came up with a few years ago. They have the uncanny ability to remember many of their past incarnations which gives them an unusual perspective on life, the universe and everything.

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“I dunno. I told you I’m about over this. This is not being a REAL Smilodon. This is being a guy in a smilodon suit. I almost told the kiddies that today.”

“I knew there’d come a time when you’d want to show those kids what a REAL Smilodon does. Did.”

“No. The kids are cute. They love Smilodons. I’m not going to fuck with that.”

“Yeah, you’re no real Smilodon. Tell you what, I’ll wear the costume next week. No one will know. You can have a weekend off. Hit on some women, you know, like in the old days.”

“It won’t work. You’ll open your human mouth and all kinds of wise cynicism will come out. Besides, were you ever a roaring predator?”

“You’re seriously asking me that?”

“Well?”

“I was a tiger.”

“I keep forgetting. I wasn’t around for that one.”

“Maybe you were a rock. You were an island. I don’t know.”

“That was the iteration that made you afraid of luv’, right? The one where you were killed by the male while you were mating?”

“It’s not that unusual.”

“Probably nature’s way of keeping the species strong. Only the really tough females survive.”

“If you’re trying to insult me, that’s not the way. You weren’t there and you’ve never been a Siberian tiger. If anything, it’s a design flaw.”

“Why would I insult you? You’re my best friend!”

***

Lamont and Dude are characters I came up with a few years ago. They have the uncanny ability to remember many of their previous incarnations which gives them a unique perspective on life, the universe and everything.

“No, but it is funny. You want to get the girls next door and throw a few steaks on the barbie?”

“Was THAT supposed to be funny?”

“I see what you mean. But anyway, do you?”

“I just want a weekend off, you know? Hang around with no schedules and no hot smilodon suit and no little kid pulling my fake whiskers. It was hard enough being a REAL smilodon.”

“Right, what was hard about that? Top predator, yadda, yadda, yadda.”

“You’re going to have to let that go someday, Lamont. I’m sorry it was you in the tarpit, I’ve told you that a hundred times, but I didn’t know it was you, and even if I had, so what? You know it’s kill-or-be-killed out there. How many times did you kill and eat me? You don’t even know.”

“No, but I savor — ha ha — the memories of the times I remember. Maybe we should change the subject and focus on the time I was a bear and you were a beautiful salmon leaping from the mountain stream, right into my mouth.”

“It was a brief and happy life. There’s something to be said for that.”

“Not much when it comes down to it.”

“OK, but it’s good to look on the bright side.”

***

Lamont and Dude are characters I came up with a few years ago. They have the uncanny ability to remember many of their previous incarnations which gives them a unique perspective on life, the universe and everything.

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“I dunno, Dude. I really thought that guy ‘got it’ you know? But maybe you’ve been right all along.”

“What?”

“About reincarnation.”

“Ah. Well, I dunno. I think the truth is pretty out there.”

“I’m inspired to explain it.”

“It’s your funeral. I gotta’ get ready to go to LA.”

“What if you sat down in your smilodon costume and explained it to all the people watching, you know? Instead of just acting like a humanoid smilodon?”

“That would go over real well. Lamont, let people have their misconceptions. It doesn’t change anything. Maybe a person needs to experience it a few times to really get it.”

“Who HASN’T experienced it a few times?”

“True, but how many people REALIZE it?”

“I think you might be right, Dude. It’s enough that sometimes some people have glimmerings.”

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar:

Wordsworth “Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood”

***

Lamont and Dude are characters I came up with a few years ago. They have the uncanny ability to remember many of their past incarnations which gives them a unique perspective on life, the universe and everything.

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“One of the great things about being a dinosaur in contrast to being a Smilodon was that there was no need to limit my hunting to the crepuscular hours of the day.”

“What?”

“New lecture for the museum.”

“Dude, if you come out with that they’re going to think you’re mental and you will lose your job. And ‘crepuscular’? I don’t think the kids will know what you mean.”

“It’s true though. When we were velociraptors — or even when I was bear and you were a salmon — we could hunt any time of day or night. Remember?”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean much. I mean a lot our meals were dead already.”

“There is that.”

“Dude I see your point, but you have to consider your audience. This is just a chance for you to (secretly) share your smilodon memories. I think if you go beyond that they’ll think you’re wacko.”

“And you don’t think a human dressing up in a smilodon suit and walking around on all fours isn’t a little wacko?”

“It’s pretty wacko.”

“I think they’ll think that I just did more research.”

“Not if you claim outright to have been a velociraptor. I’m sure some of those people in the audience are evolution deniers.”

“Oh, that’s true on so many levels.”

***

Lamont and Dude are characters I came up with a few years ago. They have the uncanny ability to remember many of their past incarnations which gives them a unique perspective on life, the universe, and everything.

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Hey Dude, listen to this: “The Miss America pageant will end its swimsuit competition. ‘We are not going to judge you on your outward appearance,’ the chairwoman said.”New York Times

“What Lamont?”

“No more swimsuits in the Miss America Pageant.”

“Rats.”

“Yeah. Probably replace it with a sitcom.”

“Why not?”

“Superficial. Female proportions are now considered superficial.”

“That’s bullshit. They’re not superficial. I remember back in the day — do you, Lamont? Our Neanderthal times?”

“I wasn’t there, Dude.”

“Oh right. Homosapien.”

“Through and through.”

“You think.”

“I know!”

“I didn’t mean to ruffle your feathers, Lamont. So what’s the thing with the bathing suits?”

“It’s not getting the ratings it once did, and it’s now considered misogynistic.”

“Ah. Back in the day…”

“We didn’t wear clothes back in the day, not us nor you low-browed, knuckle-draggers. The way I see it, the beauty contest is one way to illustrate how powerfully the homosapiens prevailed.”

“It’s not about that, Lamont. It’s about if a pack of dire wolves or smilodon is after your family can your wife pick up a couple of kids and run away. I think that’s the underlying motive behind the swimsuit competition. The winner should be the one most likely to survive.”

“I get your point, Dude, but that doesn’t explain that lumpy little Venus of whatever, you know?”

“Willendorf. And we don’t call her ‘Venus’ any more. Just ‘Woman of Willendorf’.”

“Whatever. That perpetually pregnant lump of rock used to justify modern obesity.”

“That was our dream, Lamont. You know, for a guy who remembers his oak tree days so well and can reminisce over his moments of bearness with such detail memories, you really seem to have blotted out a lot from your human iterations.”

“I didn’t like them much. What do you mean ‘that was our dream’?”

“Plenty to eat and no predators to run from.”

“I guess we’re there now.”

***

Lamont and Dude are characters I came up with a few years ago. They have the uncanny ability to remember many of their past incarnations which gives them a unique perspective on life, the universe and everything.

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A long, long time ago in an online paradise known as WordPress, there was a thing called the “DPChallenge.” It appeared on Tuesdays and it was pretty cool. It proffered a slightly more interesting challenge than the Daily Prompt of days of yore. I always enjoyed writing to it.

One day in February 2014 this prompt was posted. It consisted of some pictures and the instructions to write 1000 words, the idea being that a picture is worth at LEAST that.

Out of this prompt the dynamic duo of Lamont and Dude came into being. Lamont and Dude evolved and changed (as we are all wont to do here on WordPress), but their essential nature has not changed, not through the millennia and numerous incarnations in which they’ve roamed — or not roamed, depending — the planet. For those who might not know, Lamont and Dude are characters I came up with four years ago in response to this particular prompt! They have the uncanny ability to remember many of their previous incarnations which gives them a unique perspective on life, the universe and everything.

Lamont and Dude are beloved by a handful of loyal readers, some of whom have suggested I compile their stories into a legit book. I have given some thought to that, but it’s pretty complicated and/or I’m pretty lazy.

The DPChallenge went away and no one even noticed. Well, I noticed because I liked it, but generally once it was gone it was gone. My grandpa compared human life to a finger dipped into a bucket filled with water. It makes a stir (ha ha) when you put it in, but once you take it out again, the water returns to its static point in a matter of seconds. You can argue that some of the water comes out with your finger, but it’s negligible. This, I believe, will be the story with the Daily Prompt which meets its demise today. It’s a mystery to me why the powers of WordPress felt they had to kill something that works, but kill it they will. Yesterday 259 people wrote the prompt and generally it seems to hold steady at around 200 participants. That isn’t a lot, really. Maybe that’s the reason for killing it. Anyway, a lot of people will miss it. I know from my own blog and its readers, many more peope go to the grid for something to read than write the Daily Prompt.

There’s a theory afloat that it’s because WP wants us to have business accounts. The fact is, I have four other blogs on WordPress, five in total including this one, all of which I pay for. I rely on WordPress to host the websites of my books. Many of the books I’ve sold as a business client of WordPress were through connections made via the Daily Prompt. Basically, killing the Daily Prompt is taking away an effective arm of my marketing stragedy. That kind of pisses me off, frankly.

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“You’re famous among the feline races. Did you know? They want to be smilodons or think they might have been smilodons in the remote past. There’s such a house feline in Switzerland, Tabby T. Cat and one in Colorado named Lucy.”

“It’s just a suit, Lamont.”

“I know that. You know that, but it appears that some of our feline neighbors are manipulating their humans into writing blogs for them in which they express smilodon dreams.”

“What are you on, Lamont? You know today’s marijuana is not the marijuana of any of your youths, right?”

“I don’t think you should be asking me that. Maybe the humans who transcribe the thoughts of their cats need that warning, not me.”

“Remember our non-human lives, Lamont? We DID communicate without language. There was always the fear that the prey would read our minds and know our plans. Who’s to say the felines AREN’T communicating with their people? Maybe these cats, tell all this to their humans. I don’t think we should reject the whole idea prematurely.”

“But why a blog?”

“That is a good question.”

***

Lamont and Dude are characters I came up with a few years ago. They have the uncanny ability to remember many of their past incarnations which gives them a unique perspective on life, the universe and everything.

Lamont and Dude are characters I came up with a few years ago. They have the uncanny ability to remember many of their past incarnations. This gives them a unique perspective on life, the universe, and everything.